Software development never changes

In the early ’80s, my father trained countless Cobol programmers. A mantra that he always repeated to every single one of his students was this:

A good programmer focuses on getting the code right, while a great programmer focuses on what the users have asked for.

That was over 30 years ago. Around the time BASIC was invented – before C++, Turbo Pascal or Perl even existed and long before PHP, Python, Ruby, Javascript or any language that we actually use today had even been conceptualised.

Jump ahead to 2015.

This week I was interviewed on the WisdmLabs blog about my WordPress development practices. They asked me: What is the difference between a good developer and a great developer?

The answer was fairly obvious to me, not because my father had told me (I never knew he even had that mantra), but because this is just the way I have always viewed things:

A good developer focuses on code, while a great developer focuses on users.

So what’s changed in 30 years of software development?

Nothing.

Sure, we have new technologies available to make things easier – simpler languages, more convenient libraries, new coding standards and more efficient IDEs. But none of that will ever change what the main focus of any software development should always be: users.

If users aren’t at the centre of your development then you’re already doing it wrong.

I should probably point out that the guy in the photo at the top is not my dad – that’s Ken Bowler, a systems programmer from the University of British Columbia circa 1980.

So true. But as a user I am currently confused. I thought “WordPress / WooThemes / Automattic” up the top was a menu with clickable links. How do I navigate this website? I’m genuinely confused – this isn’t intended as a dig or negativity as I find this page really interesting and appreciate your time and effort. Actually, I minimised the page and noticed a hamburger icon appears for small devices but it contains no links. It is clickable but nothing happens.